Sarnia – Ontario Border Town.

Moments after Game 7 started, a quick visit to the parking lot of our hotel presented this fleeting pleasure: the smell of Fall.

It’s cool here, about 45’F, and the air is refreshingly moist, a mile away from the St. Clair River.

There is an enchanting fragrance in the air. It’s the sweet musty smell of old leaves. Millions of oak, maple and ash leaves, colorful all day,  have fallen to the ground, and are settling in to their final journey of decay. Above them, several million more are hanging on, urging their last breath through the night air.

The bouquet excites the olfactories. It ignites memories of secret Halloween raids on dark nights, running down alley ways and through back yards, over fences, chasing, or being chased.

All the while, there’s this intoxicating sensation from long ago: the cold brew of spent leaves, spiced with distant wood smoke, floating across the yards, streets and empty verandas of a small country town.

Upstairs, it’s 2-0, San Francisco over Kansas City, top of the 2nd.

I really hate to leave this, but it’s baseball.